India joins elite ASEM

Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 5:10 am

India on Friday (October 24) joined the elite Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attending the summit of leaders from 45 nations of the two continents in the Chinese capital. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao presided over the opening ceremony of the Seventh ASEM Summit held at the Great Hall of the People here.

He welcomed six new members of ASEM — Bulgaria, India, Mongolia, Pakistan, Romania, and the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Singh, who arrived in Beijing on Thursday (October 23) after a three-day visit to Japan, received a red carpet welcome and a friendly handshake from host Wen. They also posed for photographers. “Our participation in this Summit is a natural corollary of our close and growing ties with countries in Asia and Europe,” Singh had said in his departure statement in Delhi.

In May 2007, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had attended the Ministerial meeting of the ASEM in Hamburg, Germany. Singh’s participation this time at the ASEM Summit is the highest level of India’s involvement in the grouping.

Apart from Singh, other attendees at the summit included French President Nicholas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. The ASEM represents more than 50 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The European side in ASEM is represented by 27 European Union nations and the European Commission. The Asian members count 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Mongolia and the ASEAN Secretariat.

(With inputs from agencies)

( This post is from an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by APakistanNews.Com.)

India joins elite ASEM

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